Spain: Timely Trip

Even for a country as staunchly Catholic as Spain, the welcome for Pope
John Paul II last week was astonishing in its emotional intensity.
Beyond the outpouring of affection for the man himself, it was as if
Spaniards saw this first visit to their country ever by a sitting
Pontiff as a symbol of reconciliation for a young democracy racked by
leftist terrorism on the one hand and threatened on the other by
disgruntled right-wingers anxious to return to the dictatorial days of
Francisco Franco. Only three days before the Pope's white Alitalia 727
touched...